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Living in a Bubble
Emma Green, writing for The Atlantic, has a fascinating story about the bubbles Americans live in and why. You should read the whole thing, but the subhead tells the story.
A significant minority seldom or never meet people from another race, and they prize sameness, not difference.
I find this attitude sad.
Conversational Shortcuts
Austin Kleon has a great post about what to say when you don’t know what to say. He has several suggestions, but by far the best one is when someone tells you what they do for a living. His response? “Wow. That sounds hard.”
Think You Can Do Better Than That Bum MLB Player? Nope.
Eno Sarris, writing for The Athletic, has an entertaining story about average joes going up against professional baseball players in several drills.
What did we learn?
You might have one tool that comes close to major league quality. Maybe you can see really well and could pick out a slider early. Maybe you could beat a really slow baseball player in a sprint. Maybe you could hit a BP ball hard. Maybe there’s one thing that you could do around, let’s say, a Single-A level.
But put them all together? We’re all really far from being able to do anything at even close to the level that professional baseball players are accustomed to. It can be a painful realization, sure.
Read the whole thing.
Then & Now
Ard Gelinck photoshops celebrities posing with their younger selves and posts the results on Instagram. Some of the photos are surreal.
Every Best Picture Oscar Winner Ranked
Will Leitch and Tim Grierson, writing for Vulture, undoubtedly spent far too many hours attempting to rank all 90 Best Picture winners. You can quibble about several of these, but number one is absolutely correct (and, no, it isn’t The Godfather).
The Rude Awakening
James Vincent, writing for The Verge, highlights a website that is the tip of the iceberg of a technology war that I think will be the leading issue of the 21st century: The ability of AI to generate fake visuals.
ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com creates an endless stream of fake portraits. The software is relatively easily available and has already changed the face of porn and in a lot of places eliminated the “uncanny valley” of CGI.
…the ability to manipulate and generate realistic imagery at scale is going to have a huge effect on how modern societies think about evidence and trust. Such software could also be extremely useful for creating political propaganda and influence campaigns.
In other words, ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com is just the polite introduction to this new technology. The rude awakening comes later.
Expect porn and politics to be the first places this technology thrives.
A Blueprint
I really like Andrew Sullivan’s approach to writing about the political ramifications of what’s happening in the world today. Each Friday, I peruse his New York magazine column looking for a turn of a phrase or an interesting insight. In today’s column I found this:
If the Democrats want to fight the next election on the need for a radical rebalancing of the economy in favor of the middle and working class, for massive investment in new green technology, for higher taxes on the superrich, and for health-care security for all Americans, they can win.
I think these are the general policy positions for nearly all of the Democrat candidates running for President. It is nice to see it wrapped up in a perfect little 50 word sentence though.
The Weirdest Logos in the History of Each MLB Team
Chris Landers, writing for mlb.com, has a fun story about weird logos for Major League Baseball teams. I was certainly familiar with many of these logos and some are definitely weirder than others, but for my money the alternate Boston Red Sox graphic takes the cake.
The Luckiest Guy
I’m sharing the note I gave my wife this morning. Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone.
I know you didn’t want any flowers, cards, or other trappings of Valentine’s Day, but February 14 made me stop and think that I don’t always take the time to remember and enjoy the things that made me fall in love with you. It’s certainly unintentional, but with a day filled with hearts and roses, it’s good to stop and remind ourselves.
Because we get caught up in our lives and our jobs, the waves of emotions we both differently experience, or the unending daily task list, we sometimes miss what we love about each other. Some days I’m struggling. Other days, the struggle is real for you. Still, there are a few moments when I’m instantly attracted to you: a knowing smile, a joke that makes me laugh out loud, a touch under covers, or just seeing the love in your eyes.
When I’m with you, I see how imperfect I am yet you patiently show me the way. You see my potential and your encouragement is sometimes all I need to get through a trying day. You support me as I hope I do for you. Together we can face whatever comes next.
Thank you for your patience with me. I know I’m not easy to be with sometimes. I hope every day before you go to bed that you feel our love and are reminded of it even when you are mad or upset.Your decision to love me has completely changed me for the better and I hope my decision to love you has changed you. You deserve nothing more than all of my love as I feel all of yours every day.
Years ago, I intrigued you by asking if you would be my muse. Today, I continue to be inspired, impressed, and in love with you. I continue to be the luckiest guy on the planet.
Rest in Peace, Opportunity 2004-2019
After turning 90 days into 15 years, NASA’s Mars Opportunity rover mission is officially over. Marina Koren, writing for The Atlantic, has an incredible moving story about Opportunity as well as its brother Spirit.
The Washington Post has the full history of Mars Opportunity rover and The New York Times has an interactive look at the rover’s work. Of course, Randall Munroe of xkcd also paid tribute to Opportunity.
One day when humans reach Mars, they will find Opportunity covered in dust and they will display him in a museum.
Yesterday
A movie is hitting the theaters on my birthday that, frankly, I’m mad about because it is the perfect premise, and I’m insanely jealous I did not come up with it. Of course, the guy who wrote Notting Hill and Love Actually did (Richard Curtis) and it’s being directed by Danny Boyle, who you might remember handled the duties with Slumdog Millionaire and exited the James Bond franchise’s latest installment.
So, yes, I’m burying the lede. In Yesterday, a struggling musician wakes up after a mysterious global blackout to realize The Beatles have been erased from existence, and he’s the only one to remember their songs. Of course, he embarks on a career of “writing” the Beatles catalog. Passing off their songs as his, what follows is fame, fortune, Kate McKinnon, Ed Sheeran’s bad advice, and my favorite British actress Lily James.
I cannot wait to see this movie.
Note Taking Apps
If you are in the market for a note taking app (I’m not), CJ Chilvers has a deep dive into a variety of notes/writing apps. It’s really an in-depth review.
Go Slow
Michael Wade on going slow.
There is an odd prejudice in favor of speed. The idea that faster is better makes no sense in many situations, especially those related to pleasure. Rushing through a gourmet meal or a great novel or a conversation with a loved one reduces the joy and yet many people will forego pleasure so they can hurry along to their next stilted experience.
Full Frontal Assault
To paraphrase Lucius Fox (as played by Morgan Freeman) in The Dark Knight:
Let me get this straight, you think just because you have a dick pick, one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world, who can hire anyone in the world to investigate, humiliate and probably kill you, is going to capitulate to blackmail and extortion? Good luck.
Seriously, this story about Jeff Bezos, the National Enquirer, “below the belt selfies,” divorce, Trump, the Saudis, and the Mueller investigation is bonkers. It started simply enough with a Medium post by Jeff Bezos entitled, “No thank you, Mr. Pecker.” It was a very good day for Twitter and Medium as Bezos promoted the post via Twitter and I’m sure both platforms received a jolt they weren’t expecting. In the post, Bezos lays out the blackmail and extortion with details and, in a lot of places, actual emails and written communication.
There have been a lot of hot takes on the story. Sophie Weiner at Splinter, Casey Newton, Russel Brandom/Adi Robertson at The Verge, Brian Feldman at New York Magazine, Jenni Avins at Quartz, and Alana Semuels at The Atlantic.
My favorite breakdown came from Judd Legum in his Popular Information newsletter. In it, he explains with a certain journalistic flair all the particulars of the scandal. Although, I have to admit the lede on John Cassidy’s New Yorker story is the best:
Memo to the honchos at the National Enquirer: if you are going to threaten one of the richest men in the world by saying that you have sexually explicit selfies of him and his girlfriend, don’t have your lawyer and top editor put the threats in writing. The rich guy might decide he can ride out a stolen dick pic or two, especially if he’s already announced that he’s getting divorced.
If I were a betting man (and I’m not a betting man), Mr. Pecker is headed to jail.
EGOT
Malorie McCall, writing for The Hollywood Reporter, asks the question: fifteen people have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony Award. Can you name them all? The only one I could name was Rita Moreno and I completely forgot about Whoopi Goldberg.
Run Against Pence
My 2019 would be officially made if one of the Democratic candidates spent their whole primary campaign campaigning against Mike Pence on the assumption Trump will not be in office in November 2020
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) February 10, 2019
It would be the ultimate troll, as Trump has no idea what to do when 100% ignored
This idea by Seth Abramson is brilliant. Read the whole Twitter thread.
The Second Book
A couple of days ago Matt Gemmell wrote a lengthy blog post about the creation of his second book. I just got around to reading it. For anyone wanting to write a book (hey, that’s me…), it’s a must-read.
Sleeping Well
Matthew Walker, writing for The Guardian, says if you want to be healthy getting less than six hours of sleep a night should be avoided.
Routinely sleeping less than six hours a night also compromises your immune system, significantly increasing your risk of cancer. So much so, that recently the World Health Organization classified any form of night-time shiftwork as a probable carcinogen.
Inadequate sleep — even moderate reductions of two to three hours for just one week — disrupts blood sugar levels so profoundly that you would be classified as pre-diabetic. Short sleeping increases the likelihood of your coronary arteries becoming blocked and brittle, setting you on a path towards cardiovascular disease, stroke and congestive heart failure.
Looking at my Sleep Cycle stats, I average about seven hours and 15 minutes of sleep a night. However, my sleep quality is right at 75%. I wonder if I need to do something different with my sleep patterns?
Offseason Looks
Bernie Miklasz, writing for The Athletic, is starting a series of questions and answers for the upcoming St. Louis Cardinals season. First up: Did the Cardinals do enough this offseason to enhance their roster?
Personally, I’m tired of the re-calibrating Cardinals. Signing Paul Goldschmidt and Andrew Miller were great moves, but they needed to make one more, and, surprisingly, it’s still available: Bryce Harper. They aren’t going to do it because they don’t feel the need to do it. Mozeliak and Girsch think what they have is going to be good enough to propel the team to the playoffs.
You know, it looked like the team was going all-in this year. But the old conservative calculations kicked in, and they see that financially they don’t need to spend the money.
If Dexter Fowler goes on a summer heatwave and tears through the National League, I’ll eat crow. I just think it was smarter to sign Harper, eat Fowler’s contract and get people really, really excited about Cardinals baseball.
Friday and Monday
Nicholas Bate on planning ahead.
Friday isn’t just about Friday. With a bit of prep, a bit of thought and a bit of anticipation it’ll make Monday a whole lot easier.